With a brand-spanking-new year, comes brand-spanking-new possibilities. So, riding a wave of good feelings and motivation, I sat down to fill out a housing application (joy) - only to discover that I am not a real adult. Present home address: ehhh...subletting...for a month? Previous home address: staying with friends? Next previous address: damn it, a teepee? It didn't get much better, because as a 25-year-old, this is what my housing record looks like:
Three years ago I moved to Thailand. I lived there until August 2012. (No housing record to speak of...and certainly not in English.) When I moved back to the good ol' U.S. of A., I stayed with my sister. I didn't have a contract or anything...I was a bum. Then, I moved in with Phil. We lived at the same house until July 2013, but I was never officially a tenant. When we were ready to leave Santa Fe, we moved into a tent, stayed with old friends and family, slept in the car, cruised around the country, crashed wherever we could find accommodation...including many a backyard, couch surfed, worked on a farm, stayed with new friends in Arcata, and then found a temporary place of our own.
So, now that I'm filling out official documentation for housing - you know, planning for the future - I'm realizing that I am actually not much of an adult. I don't have a rental history. I don't own anything of value. And, I don't use credit. Hah! It's so simple, yet not so simple. I hadn't even made it through the first page of the rental application when I felt an existential crisis creeping up. I turned to Phil and lamented, "I'm not a real adult! How am I supposed to fill out a housing application when I don't have a history living anywhere?"
I don't think that either of us are grown-ups, but it doesn't really matter. I told a co-worker about my situation and she said that she didn't think that my story was outside the norm in Arcata. That gave me hope. Today, we went to look at a room in a very relaxed, little house. It was mellow and the landlord was easygoing. I realized that Phil and I can be happy anywhere and that we can fit into most living situations. We are flexible and we have become accustomed to alternative living, however, I'm getting tired of bending to fit various set-ups, instead of being honest about what we need. I want to seamlessly fit, but to also be met in the middle. I don't know if we will end up being chosen by the landlord, but it was refreshing to go see a place and feel immediately comfortable. On top of that, it showed us that there are some options available where you don't have to promise your first born child to move in or accept conditions you may not have otherwise accepted. (For instance, we aren't trying to pay 500 dollars a month to live with 14 squatters and one bathroom.)
Now that we aren't on the road anymore and we both have jobs, we have a few more options. However, we do want to find some middle ground. For so long, we have been bending with what we have been handed, but we have learned a lot about what works for us. Though we may not find the perfect place right off of the bat, we have hope that our future may be more along the lines of what we are looking for. This is a brand-spanking-new year, and though we don't know where we will be living in two weeks, for now, it looks like a few question marks will suffice.
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